Loyalty/Disloyalty, Follow Jesus no matter what!

Loyalty/Disloyalty, Follow Jesus no matter what!       

Kelly Durant  July-28

    

John 6:48-68

48 I am that bread of life.49 Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die.51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.52 The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?53 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.54 Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.58 This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever 59 These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum.60 Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?61 When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you 62 What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. 65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 

Loyalty is something that money cannot buy! It is what everyone wants but what few want to give! Loyalty will chose that which costs you everything over that which is easy!

When I was a teenager I did sporadic work for Mrs. Thomas, a woman who was kind hearted to all the unemployed teenagers in the neighborhood. I would rake her leaves, paint her houses, repair her roofs, etc. and 2 times I recall she sent me to the other side of town to buy some pricey brooms from a strange little store that mostly sold brooms. It turned out that this store only sold items made by blind people. She was a loyal customer and bought items from them every year because she obtained satisfaction knowing that she was helping someone by investing in them, and not in some other rich chain store. 

It cost her more, but take a closer look, her loyally, along with that of others, were giving blind people dignity and keeping them employed!

The scripture today is Jesus representation on how we must take Him in totally, as we take in bread, to really be a part of Him! Of course it was with the last super with his disciples that He consolidated this new pact in his body, the bread, and his blood, the wine, and it was then the disciples fully understood this teaching. There are so many aspects to this particular passage, but today we will focus in on loyalty.

In scripture (vs 66) we find that Jesus at one time had many disciples, but after this teaching, they all left except the 12! Where did these disloyal ones go? To follow the Jews again, to follow John the Baptist? To just be unhappy and faithless? If they would have remained loyal they could have been relieved it was not as their carnal minds had imagined!

It really doesn’t matter where they went because they no longer made history, they lost their connection with the truth, and most probably their salvation, or eternal life, because they were offended by Jesus truth!

Imagine, all of these disciples saw His miracles, they had heard all of his teachings, they probably were proud to boast that they were followers of the newest wave, at how Jesus was so popular. But now, what happens when his teaching no longer makes them feel good? What happen when a certain sermon suddenly makes Him unpopular?  Their loyalty is out the door, and Jesus makes it clear they never believed in Him in the beginning. (vs 64)

Notice in verse  68, (read) Peter, despite how he even denied the Lord later, was loyal deep inside! He knew only Jesus had the real message, the whole truth, even when his truth was not clear to understand, even when everyone was deserting, he remained loyal. He later died for Jesus as the rest of the disciples! There is no more loyalty that exists than that!

And in verse 64, Jesus also knew who would betray Him, even though Judas did not leave at that time, that he had already left in his heart, he was no longer a loyal follower, and imagine how Judas has to live with himself eternally for what he did!

Today, some secret societies, some mafias, some political venues will demand your loyalty by you swearing a death oath, so they can kill you if you become disloyal to them and that is how Satan’s system works! He wants to own your body, soul, and mind or else! Loyalty to him comes with threats, intimidation, and cruel oppression.

Jesus is the opposite of that! With Jesus anyone is free at any time to leave the faith, but there is no other one to go to except to the ones on the dark side. Those on the dark side kill, rape, and steal and even eat sacrificed human flesh and drink real blood. They will suffer the eternal flames of hell for their wicked deeds! It is in the news that this old practice has not gone away! 

Jesus proved with the last supper to all the world that no flesh or blood except His could save and empower. Jesus with bread and wine proved that God is not sadistic, He only wants us to trust that He is in control even when we feel very uncomfortable. God tests our loyalty repeatedly, and I have decided to keep on trusting no matter what, and you? 

Those that remain loyal to Jesus all their lives inherit a crown of life and live forever in a heaven filled with other people who are loyal like they are. 

Throughout all time those who are loyal to God, despite sufferings, despite not understanding everything about doctrines, teachings, or their own life’s events, despite maybe even getting killed by Satan’s people, get to live forever in heaven where all tears are wiped away forever.  

Have you decided to remain loyal to Jesus no matter the cost? By being loyal, by proclaiming Jesus you will get persecution, embarrassment, brief moments of confusion, and rejection by some of your family or community, but later you will see how it is worth it all! Jesus feeds our bodies and spirits from His own self and gives us peace of mind, and eternal life! Trust Him and stay loyal! And after you leave this old tired body and go into a new resurrected one you will be thankful and praise Him forever in heaven! 

Have you really repented?

Have you really repented? To know Jesus you must!                       Kelly Durant

Matthew 4:17

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

2. Have you ever noticed how people when they don’t like someone they can find fault everything, even with the way the walk across the room? It is carnal, human nature to want to believe you are so much better than another. But people get tired of criticisms because it begs the question, what have you, the critic, done in the way of good for humanity apart from complain?

Today we see so many people obsessed with what other people say, everyone wants to comment, but do know how they are failing God? They have forgotten to focus on their own selves, on their own sins and pride! God didn’t call us to preach attention diversion, that other people are so bad, he called us to preach repentance starting with one’s own self which leads to salvation!

Today many people do not understand repentance. Instead of seeing their sins, shortcomings and failures, they only see the sins and faults in others. Friends, this is blatant self-righteousness and hypocrisy and it has become so common in our post Christian world that most people do not even recognize it anymore!

3. How do you know if you are focused correctly, to know if you are self-righteous or not? Ask yourself this question, can you name one of your sins that Jesus helped you to get the victory over? To be a Christian means you lived one way for a certain time but then Jesus came into you life and everything changed! Can you tell me when that date was? What did you repent of? What is your testimony?

I want to start calling some of you up here to hear your testimony? When do we start, next week? We all should hear how Jesus saved you from your evil self. Everyone needs to know your story how you were once lost but now you are found, how you were blind but now how you see. I love testimonies!

I can tell you I had a lot to repent of, but The worst of my sins was spiritual pride! I had to repent of speaking foul language, drinking alcohol, smoking pot and taking LSD, from hanging with low life friends who only wanted to party and be high, and from being promiscuous. It’s a pretty bad list, right? Well before I didn’t even consider those things wrong because everyone else was doing them and I had lost touch with God and His righteousness. No one called me out, but soon the Holy Spirit was going to do a convicting work in me.

4. So, what we are facing today is the sad reality that many Christians cannot even identify their sins! Holiness means you lose your desire to sin and it also implies that God is cleaning you layer by layer, exposing one thing then another thing, and for sure He is not done with His work on you yet!

James 1:4

But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  Colossians 1:10

that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God;

And to finish with my testimony, I started making an effort to get close to God my way at age 20 in college through yoga and following gurus, so I was able to leave behind many of the above named sins that year but I developed another one, that of spiritual pride. I was able to sit still an hour a day in the lotus position and I believed that my knowledge and discipline under a Hindu/universalism type religion made me superior to others; after all, they were carnal, not spiritual.

5. And then one day I met some missionaries that really knew their Bible (and no, they were not Mormon or JW), and they had the Holy Spirit glow about them and they confronted me in my erroneous beliefs. I told them God recycles us and improves each of us (reincarnation) and they showed me this:

Hebrews 9:27 

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,

Colossians 2:6-8 New King James Version (NKJV)

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding [a]in it with thanksgiving.

8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ

Being confronted challenged me! No one else did that. I had to reevaluate everything I believed. I once believed in Jesus, so how did I get cheated or deceived to believe other things? It was because those philosophies and ideas were feeding my ego and pride. I did repent and asked God to remake me into a new creature, if not I would have become resistant to the Word of God and continued on with my false illusions of what God and life is supposed to be.

6. So take note of this, to confront someone, to correct them in their errors is not a bad thing! The society today seems to mark as a sinner anyone who would call out sin! But if the one correcting has their basis centered around the principles and Word of God, then this type of confrontation and calling out is to be praised.

The problem with the world today is too many Christians have never been corrected for their errors. Too many Christians have never sincerely repented for having spiritual pride along with many other sins! Due to this fact, they never have the authority and Holy Spirit conviction to correct the misguided.

So what happens when the pastor or a brother or sister says that something is not right in your life? It may happen as I have seen a few times that the one offended starts gathering a backup group (usually online) to defend their errors and everyone goes crazy as if the worst sin in the world has been committed to call them out! No, the sin is with the person rejecting correction!

7.  “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.” 

― William Booth

Did you capture the depth of that quote? How powerful it is! How prophetic he was! This describes the state of many Christians in the world today! It is because people have been mentally conditioned by society in Hollywood, the government, the media, etc.,to defend sins, to resist the Holy Spirit, to eliminate Jesus from the public debate, to never repent, to never include God and then believe heaven will welcome them upon death! The truth of God’s Word is not being taught in many places but here we will preach it and it will live on bringing repentance and new life and salvation to all who obey and follow. 

 My wife and I get frustrated often because we have lived through the past decades where we witnessed many people, mostly young ones, repent from drugs and pride, get turned on to Jesus, and start a totally new life! That was the Holy Spirit working! But churches today have smothered the Holy Spirit and replaced it with the world’s degrading ideologies! These ancient resurgent beliefs and practices contradict the word of God and how too few Christians are contradicting them? We have the right to correct those in our own congregations.

8. A true Christian will speak the truth in love no matter who it offends. Those who obey Jesus Christ are not here to please, appease, or put at ease! Luke 7:23

“And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” So the opposite is true, to be offended by Jesus and his followers eliminates any blessings you could gain.

Jesus said: Matthew 10

34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

With this we understand that we can never have peace with the world! God’s children and Satan’s children will never agree! And the sad part is Satan has his children everywhere even in the churches and they are bringing big divisions by demanding you accept unrepentant sinful people!

9. We preach Jesus! What does that include? It means with Jesus you can be forgiven of your sins to start a new life, it means you will gain brothers and sisters that will love you as no one has ever loved you. It means you will have a desire to live in purity and holiness and please God 24/7 seeking ways to let your light shine serving Him doing good works. It means you become what we use to call a “Jesus freak”, one who is so in love with Jesus that He is all you want to talk about!

It means ‘imitating’ or ‘being’ like Jesus! We can be healers, lovers, comforters, and all of the good things of Jesus but we must have that element of doing all of what He did and that includes confronting people in their errors. We must warn people, the Kingdom of God is coming (which means He will overthrow this world’s powers…soon). “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Heaven can start in your heart right now if you get rid of all the world’s preprograming worthlessness filling your heart and head. I replaced all my thoughts and actions to be centered on the kingdom of God and it worked amazingly for me and it will work for you!

Most all of the world’s people’s souls are captive in a kingdom of hell! Satan has damaged them to think that sin is not sin so they are destroying their bodies and spirits. Only Jesus can free their spirit to have eternal life and heaven in His kingdom but how will they get there unless you and I warn them that they must repent and change everything about the direction of their lives? Have you changed everything about your life to be conformed to the Word of God? Have you read it to know what you should obey? Is the Holy Spirit calling you to repent of any sin right now? Come and confess to Jesus